Chapter 3
Eight years later, Hazel Brennen is still pure temptation wrapped in trouble.
I stride back into the fire station, my jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth.
The feel of her in my arms is burned into my memory—soft curves pressed against my chest, those dark eyes wide with shock just inches from mine.
She had felt lighter than I remember but for one heartbeat, holding her felt like coming home.
Then reality crashed back in, and I remembered exactly why that was the most dangerous feeling in the world.
Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun with strands escaping to frame her face, and she had on jeans and a lightweight jacket that looked completely inadequate for Vermont weather.
My pulse had kicked up before I could tell it not to.
She’s changed since she left—still small and fierce, but there’s something different about her now.
More guarded, maybe. Like she’s built walls around herself that weren’t there before.
I don’t understand why she’s back. After the way she left, after the things she said, I never thought she would return, not after the first three years had passed.
But I remember the shock in her eyes when she saw me on that bridge this morning. The flare of attraction that she never could hide, not even when we were teenagers, stealing kisses in the woods. For just a moment, before her walls slammed back up, I saw something that looked almost like longing.
Then she went right back to acting like I was a stranger who’d insulted her by breathing the same air.
“Well, well,” Declan Hayes drawls from where he leans against the equipment lockers, that easy grin spreading across his face. “Look who’s playing hero again.”
Declan treats life like one big adventure, especially when it comes to the opposite sex. His charm has worked on half the women in three counties, and he knows it. But he’s one hell of a firefighter.
“So Hazel really did come back?” he asks, nodding toward the coffee shop visible through the bay doors.
I just grunt.
I saw the way she stood on the ladder, unbalanced. Crossing the road over to her was an impulsive act. The whole time, I thought of excuses if she caught me. But then I caught her when she turned around and lost her balance. Even now, she fits perfectly in my arms.
Declan chuckles, crossing his arms as he studies her through the window where she’s now arranging chairs with her mother. “She’s filled out nicely. Might be worth asking out.”
The words have me going unnaturally still, and I tilt my head slightly to give him a long look. “You can try it if you like working with a broken jaw.”
Declan’s hand moves instinctively to his face, touching his jaw gingerly. “Jesus, Luke.” He pauses, studying my expression with those sharp eyes that hide behind his easygoing facade. “Still carrying a torch for that one, are we?”
“I’m not carrying anything,” I say tersely. “She made her feelings about this town and everyone in it pretty clear eight years ago.”
“And what feelings were those?” Declan waggles his brows.
Before I can respond, Mason Brooks comes jogging up from the equipment bay, his face lighting up with interest. “Is it true?” He asks. “Did Hazel Brennen really come back? My mother just called me to see if I want to take her out on a date.”
“A date?” I feel something hard and ugly unfurl in my chest. “She has a boyfriend.”
“Not anymore,” Mason grins. “Turns out she broke up with her city slicker. Her parents are telling everyone. Maybe they’re hoping she’ll find someone here and just come back permanently.”
I’m too stunned to respond. They broke up? She didn’t tell me that.
When Sam told me a few years ago that she was dating someone, the stab of betrayal had been devastating. This was the girl I had planned to build a life with. I had seen my future with her, and she had walked away from me so easily, like I was nothing.
I turn towards the coffee shop, and through the window, I watch Hazel laugh at something her father says, her whole face lighting up in a way that makes my chest tight. But even from this distance, I can see the way she holds herself back.
She’s changed. It’s obvious to anyone who knows her. The twinkle in her eyes is long gone, dulled by something. She’s more reserved. Maybe I’m imagining it.
Either way, she is not my problem. She’s not here to stay, and there’s nothing between us anymore.
* * *
I’m hunched over my desk in the station office, reviewing vendor applications for the Harvest Festival when Sam barges through the door without knocking. He sprawls into the chair across from my desk like he owns the place, his work coveralls still stained with motor oil.
“I’m starving,” he announces. “Let’s go eat.”
I don’t look up from the paperwork. “I’m working.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “You always say that. It’s just lunch, not a vacation to the Bahamas.”
“The festival is in three weeks, Sam. I’ve got forty-seven vendor applications to review, safety inspections to schedule, and the fire department volunteers need—”
“Blah, blah, blah.” Sam reaches across the desk and flips my clipboard face-down. “Food. Now. Before I waste away to nothing.”
I glare at him, but he just grins that easy smile that’s gotten him out of trouble since we were kids. The same smile Hazel used to have before she left.
“Fine.” I push back from the desk. “But we’re making it quick.”
“Since when do you rush through lunch at the diner? Besides, I need to talk to you about something.” Sam stands and stretches, his back popping.
Something in his tone makes me look at him more carefully. Sam Brennen has been my best friend since we were eight years old. His family took me in at sixteen when a house fire killed my parents and my paternal uncle stole my inheritance leaving me destitute and homeless.
Sam is my brother in everything but blood. I can read the tension in his shoulders like a book.
“What is it?” I ask slowly.
He just gives me a wry grin. “Let’s eat first.”
“Did you know your sister was coming home?” I ask as we head toward the door.
Sam stops dead. “How did you—” His expression shifts, understanding dawning. “You saw her.”
“Twice. Once at the stone bridge, once when she was falling off a ladder outside the coffee shop.” The memory of her weight against my chest sends another jolt through me. “Is that why you kicked me out last night?”
“Yeah.” He runs a hand through his dark hair, the same gesture Hazel makes when she’s stressed. “She just showed up. Unannounced. Pulled into the driveway like she’d been gone eight hours instead of eight years.”
We walk toward the Maple Leaf Diner in silence, the cold air carrying the scent of burning leaves.
I can see my breath, and the maples lining Main Street are at peak color—brilliant reds and golds that would normally make me appreciate living here.
Today, they just remind me that Hazel always loved fall most of all.
“How’d it go when you saw her?” Sam asks as he pulls open the diner door.
“About as well as you’d expect.” I kick at a pile of fallen leaves that have blown onto the sidewalk.
The familiar smell of bacon grease and coffee hits us as we slide into our usual booth by the window. Dolores, a plump, smiling woman with loud pink hair in tight curls and a warmth that gives this diner its heart, waves from behind the counter, already pouring our coffee without being asked.
Sam settles across from me, but there’s tension in the way he holds himself. “She’s different, Luke.”
“Different how?” I ask, though part of me already knows. I saw it in her eyes this morning—something dulled, something broken, even under the sharp words, there was something hollow.
“More...” Sam struggles with the words. “I don’t know. Fragile, I guess.”
The word hits me wrong. Hazel Brennen has never been fragile. Stubborn, yes. Independent to a fault, absolutely. But fragile? The girl who used to climb trees higher than anyone dared, who stood up to bullies twice her size, who left this town with her chin raised and fire in her eyes?
“What happened with her boyfriend?” The question comes out rougher than I intended.
“I don’t know.” Sam’s voice is tight with frustration as a teenage server sets down our usual—two coffees, cream for him, black for me. “She won’t talk about it. Just said they broke up and she wanted to come home.”
“But?”
“But she looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks. She’s lost weight.” He wraps his hands around his mug like he’s trying to warm himself. “You have to know her to see it. There’s a certain quiet within her. You remember how she used to be.”
I did remember. Hazel in motion was a force of nature—gesturing wildly as she talked, bouncing on her toes when excited, filling every silence with observations or questions or dreams.
“Now she’s just withdrawn into herself somewhere.” Sam’s brown eyes, so much like hers, are grim. “It’s like someone dimmed all the lights inside her.”
I remember the shadows under her dark eyes this morning, the way her jacket hung loose on her frame. Even as I’d held her, I’d noticed how small she felt, like she’d shrunk in on herself.
“Did he hurt her?” The words come out low and dangerous.
“I don’t know,” Sam repeats, and I can hear the same protective anger building in his voice. “She won’t say. I tried asking her last night when it was just us, but she kept insisting she was fine and changed the subject.”
Something hot and violent unfurls in my chest. The thought of anyone hurting her, of some city asshole breaking down everything bright and fierce about her, makes my hands clench into fists.
“We should find out,” I say. “If that bastard laid a hand on her—”
“Luke.” Sam’s voice cuts through my building rage. “Don’t.”
“What do you mean, don’t?”
“I mean she’s barely been home twenty-four hours.” He leans forward, his voice dropping. “She isn’t saying much. My parents are concerned. They’re trying to act normal, but I can see it. She’s not the same person who left here.”